Silence Me
by Katherine Elisabeth Hood
Summary: "She was a woman motivated by love." AU one-shot for our very own Regina Mills. She's a woman broken by love. She's beaten, and lost. She's dangerous not because she doesn't have a heart, but because she does. I'm rubbish at summaries, I'll just let the writing speak for itself.


_Okay. This is an AU thing I wrote. Yes, Regina is in Storybrooke. So it is set as if they found a way back, after the year in the Enchanted Forest after the finale that's aired. I just... needed to get these feelings out. And honestly, it made me feel a lot better. I hope you guys like this, because, seriously, this is a piece of my own heart. These are feelings I have felt, and that are very familiar to me. I'm probably more proud of this piece than I have ever been of anything I've __**ever**__ written. And yes I mean ever in my history of writing. So... please enjoy._

**Disclaimer:** _I do not own any of this but my own writing. Regina Mills, Storybrooke, and all of the characters and such belong Adam, Eddie, ABC, and the wonderful and dedicated cast of Once Upon A Time. _

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"Look into my eyes and tell me what you see. Do you see a woman? Or nothing but a monster. Do you see someone who's been broken beyond repair, and finally stopped trying to pick up the pieces. I can't help but close my eyes and dream of a different ending. I'm so done pretending that I'm fine. I will not bend until I break. How much can one bruised body take? I will scream these words until they become true. I look in the mirror and I see someone I don't even recognise. I see someone unworthy of being loved. Of being believed in. I live knowing what I've done, every day I wake up knowing who I was and who I have been. And who I am hates who I've been. But there's not much I can do. People don't change. They only fool themselves into believing they can. This life I pretend to lead, what is it? Besides a bunch of lies I've fooled myself into believing. I will bleed for what my hands have done. I can't run from my ending, because in the end I will get what I deserve. I look back on what I'm going through, and I know this isn't my identity, but its been so long, that if I tried to change, I would be nothing but an empty shell. Abandoned. Broken. Alone. Dead. When I breathe my last breaths, I will breathe them knowing that it is what I deserve, knowing that I will be leaving this world to keep so many others safe. In destroying myself, I have destroyed so much more in the process. So many lives have been lost because I could not see past the end of my nose. The only things I have ever loved are gone, and I no longer feel except the ache of an empty heart. There is no anger. Not anymore. There is sadness, and it echoes in the cavern where my heart used to be."

Chestnut hues turned downwards to the swirling mass of black in her hand, and she could feel the tears as they seared her cheeks, burning them against the coolness of the air conditioning. This was what she deserved, was it not? It was time to stop pretending. Pretending that everything was going to be alright. Here she was, pouring out her very soul for who? Who would even see this? No one. There was no one left. There was nothing left. No doubts. No second thoughts whirred through her mind. She knew it was her time. Maybe it was a coward's death, but she was alone. There was nothing left for her here. There was no one left to believe in her. To help her see there was going to be a light, eventually. She was paddling up a stream without an oar. "I'm so sorry." She whispered to no one in particular, seeing as she was the only one in the large house. Who was she, really? Who had she ever been? She'd been nothing but a pawn in her own game. She had played herself. She had done this to herself. There was no one else to blame. She could no longer block out the truth with some sort of idiotic justification. She was the one who had caused all of this. All along, all of these years, she had fooled herself into believing that she was doing the right thing. That she was doing it all in the name of true love.

When that was the farthest thing from the truth.

Once again her gaze turned to the swirling mass in her hand. There was no longer any red to be seen. A heart as black as coal. The souls of the lives she had taken screaming for mercy from the churning fluid before her very eyes. Death was final, and finality had been something that was a foreign concept. Closure, endings, what did she know of those? Nothing. She was beaten. Broken. Destroyed. If anyone deserved this, she did. If anyone had deserved so much worse than this, it was her. Time and time again they had tried to tell her that she could redeem herself. That she could change. She couldn't change. She was stuck here, in this swirling vortex or darkness. It was tearing her apart, and she couldn't take it any longer. Forgiveness. She scoffed, a bitter smile on her lips. "I don't deserve your forgiveness." There was no panic. No terror. No fear, at what she was going to do to herself.

She had accepted death, and all that came with it. Death was final. It could not be undone. It could not be fixed by the past. It determined her future, and set the past in stone. Concrete, death dried over the wounds, the scars, the bruises, and blanketed them in a smooth cover. All was washed away with death though she knew she would have her own punishment to serve once she was gone. Which she would take willingly. It was her burden, and no one else's. It was her responsibility to carry, and she would do so with honour, knowing that her son was safe. He was loved. He would be taken care of. Now, maybe she could finally see the man she had longed to see for so many years. Maybe now, they could be together. She would be able to see his face again. Her fingers could once again brush against the cheeks that had faded into existence, but had become an image clearer than day. Her eyes would once again be able to meet with those murky blue irises that looked upon her with so much love. Her ears would be able to float again with the sound of his voice wafting around her. She would be able to relish in his arms snaked around her body, his fingers sifting through her hair, telling her over again that she was loved. That she was safe. That she could no longer be hurt. Whatever punishment awaited her, that prospect stood above all consequences. "I am coming, Daniel. I'm coming." She breathed, touching the gold band on her left ring finger. The ring he had given her all those years ago in the stables. She had carried it all these years, and kept it safe. The one reminder of her humanity. That was who she was. Human. The most human of them all. So beaten and broken that she was no longer recognisable. For so long she had taken an oath that there would be no good deed that she could do, because the only road good deeds led to was one of heartbreak and destruction. She had carried her own anger for so long, she'd almost forgotten what it was to love. Then one small child had changed all of that, and she had brought it crashing down around herself. She only had herself to blame. There were no more excuses. No more options for a way out. Now, there was only one.

After a moment, she reached out, not having realised that she'd left the camera rolling. But just as her fingers moved to turn the recording off, she paused. There was one last thing to say.

"If any of you ever see this, as I doubt you will, I ask that you not be angry with me. I ask that you not feel guilty." She swallowed hard, looking back down to the pumping organ in her hand. "I ask that you move on. As I am sure you will. Not that this matters. I have been sitting in my own prison cell for far too long. And I have no one else but myself to blame. I understand that. If anything, what I wish you to know is that I know I am responsible for all of this. It was all my doing, no one else's. I have killed, and ravaged, and destroyed everything in my path, in the process of destroying myself. And for that I am truly sorry. I have done this to myself. I've locked myself into this mess, and it is time I ended it. There's one last thing. With my death... the curse, all of it will break. Henry will remember who I am. Emma will remember. When you see him, as I am sure you will, as Emma will bring him back immediately, tell him.. tell him I love him. I love him so much that I had to give him his best chance. I had to keep him safe. Tell him that I am sorry. For everything I put him through, that I never meant to hurt him. He reminded me that I was human. That even with a soul as black as my own, I could still love. He showed me that I had a chance. That I could be someone other than what I believed myself to be. Show him this, when you think he is old enough. I want him to see it. He deserves to know that I may have died a coward's death, but that I died as myself. I died as Regina. I died... human."

The camera was shut off as she finally gasped in pain, the pain that she had been causing herself this entire time, unseen by the camera. Slowly applying the appropriate pressure. "Goodbye." She whispered, a small smile curling onto her lips as the heart crumbled into dust, and she felt the world slid into the peace of sleep around her. Her head slumped onto the desk, but as her body could longer move to support her, she fell to the floor, the box that her heart had been in for the past several days tumbling to the ground with her. The disk in her computer whirred quietly as the black screen waited for someone to press play. To listen. To hear her story, to hear her voice as it broke, the woman in the sweater and jeans that looked so far from the Queen she had been was simply herself as she preferred it. Her face was bare of make-up. Her hair was brushed, but had been left to it's somewhat limp state. She was simply Regina. She was herself. The woman that she had been all of those years ago, worn apart at the seams by love. Love had been her passion, her breaking point, and her death. She had never truly forgotten to love. Instead, she had failed to not love. She had failed the very mission she believed she had succeeded in- loving nothing. Because she had loved so much, that it had broken her. She had always loved the most. But love had been the deepest wound. She was a woman motivated by love. She had been corrupted by love. And she had died at the hand of love. Love had been her closest friend, and her greatest enemy. And for love, she was beginning a new book. A new life. A new love.

A new heart.

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_WELL. I hope you all liked this. Uhm. I'll admit that it's pretty sad, but I was going through some tough emotions when I wrote it. Anyway, please, please, PLEASE press that little review button. A happy author is a well reviewed one! Thanks so much for reading, and I look forward to posting more in the future for you guys! _


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